Veterans serve as classroom teachers for the day

OCEANSIDE -- Most school-age children study the Vietnam War
somewhere between Kennedy's Cuban missile crisis and Nixon's
Watergate scandal in their U.S. history textbooks.

But on Thursday, the lesson became real for hundreds of local
students who were given a sneak peek at the touring,
three-quarter-size replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial while
listening to war stories from veterans in rustled and threadbare
Army fatigues.

School buses and minivans were lined up and parked all day
Thursday along Pier View Way and Pacific Street, where the "Vietnam
Wall Experience" will open to the public at noon today and remain
open round-the-clock through midnight Sunday.

The students, from wide-eyed fifth-graders to more mature high
school seniors, were invited to visit the memorial a day early.
Before cruising the platform paralleling the seemingly endless wall
of names, students sat in bleachers listening to brief lectures
from Vietnam veterans.

Some veterans-turned-teachers used what were jokingly referred
to as "cheat sheets" on Vietnam War timelines as part of the
history lesson, and some told personal stories about their buddies
whose names are now carved on the glistening black panels of the
memorial.

It was a day many students -- who may never make it to
Washington, D.C., to see the real thing -- said they aren't likely
to forget.

"This experience, hearing the stories, seeing the wall, I've
never done that before," said Krystille Souza, an 11th-grader at
the School of Business and Technology in Oceanside. "I really
wanted to come here and see this and understand (the Vietnam War)
more."

Nick Wilkie, a fifth-grader at Calavera Hills Elementary School
in Carlsbad, said he'll always remember the day he made his first
crayon-and-paper rubbing of the name of his grandfather Quinlan
Roberts Orell, a Navy fighter pilot who died Oct. 13 ,1968.

"My mom told me about the story of my grandfather," said Nick,
10, while waiting for volunteers to help him find his grandfather's
name, etched somewhere in the sea of inscribed names on Panel 41.
"I can really look up to him."

Ten-year-old Megan Heil, another Calavera Hills fifth-grader,
said she is not related to anyone on the wall but was moved by
seeing a few listed with her last name and some with last names of
people she knows.

"It's weird to see those names," she added, moments after
learning that the majority of the names on the wall are those of
20-year-olds who lost their lives in Vietnam. "And then I see my
reflection in the wall and see that it could be someone like me. In
10 years I could go to some war."

Teachers interviewed said Thursday's field trip was the best
complement to a history class.

"When they read about this in a book, it's not as real. Children
are more visual learners," said fifth-grader teacher Sally Estep,
who accompanied 65 students from Calavera Hills Elementary.

"To hear someone's voice crack when they talk about the war, to
see a man in a wheelchair with no legs and one arm … that makes it
a reality to these students," she said, referring to Jim Brunotte,
a Vietnam veteran in a motorized wheelchair who was among the
dozens giving guided tours of the memorial Thursday. "It also
teaches them compassion."